


As It Ever Was (or, Arthur and Merlin do Woodstock)

by waldorph



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Drugs, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-07
Updated: 2010-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:45:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin fucking <i>loves</i> this decade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As It Ever Was (or, Arthur and Merlin do Woodstock)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snarkykat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=snarkykat).



Merlin fucking _loves_ this decade.

He just…_loves_ it. He's going to love the next one, too. He fucking hated the fifties, and he's hated…most of the sixties. There was that brief shining moment, but then…well. There's the fucking Vietnam War, right? And a draft looming on the horizon, but these kids—they're not going to take this shit lying down.

He finds Arthur—_Arthur_ in a group of people. He's laughing his head off, hand on the back of a pretty guy's neck, shirtless.

At first Merlin thinks it's the pot. Or maybe he's still coming off that trip.

"Merlin, man!" Jonah calls, waving him over. "Arthur, this is the guy. Merlin. He's a _wizard_. It's like…outta sight"

Arthur turns to look at him, and the grin is knife-sharp. "Oh yeah?"

"Like, real magic. You've got to see this shit, brother," Jonah insists, and Arthur's hand curls, warm and familiar around Merlin's wrist, pulling him down beside Arthur, thighs pressed together.

Arthur's eyes are so so blue, and Merlin has _missed_ him, it's been centuries since they were last alive at the same time.

Arthur, it turns out, hitched a ride on a bus that says "MAGIC EXISTS" on the front. Arthur didn't really even mean to come, and he's not too interested in the music, and laughs at the guys on bad trips who are screaming that they can see the end of the universe and touch it with their fingernails.

He doesn't quite…fit. This is not his scene, but it's Arthur. It's still Arthur. Even sober, Arthur still ends up with a ring of people around him, all of them listening or sliding up against him.

Merlin avoids him, a little, because he doesn't know—he doesn't know how to go after this. Not quite. Not even sure if he wants to, because Arthur doesn't recognize him, not at all. So he stays with the people he came with over by the woods, and only goes over to the cluster of Arthur's people when they're running out of acid because Holly keeps stealing theirs, and Merlin is the only person anyone trusts to steal it back.

Apparently Arthur's reaction to dropping acid is that he remembers.

Everything.

He doesn't seem to _trip_, doesn't think he's flying or that he can see everything; doesn't make sweeping pronouncements about life and statements that feel so _true_ until you come off the trip and your friends tell you what you've been saying.

"Merlin," Arthur drawls, all lazily amused insistence.  And Merlin-- he's _missed_ him, missed the way Arthur was never really as impressed as he should have been-- was always, in some ways that asshole who had come after him with a mace but then let him go, grinning faintly around the edges; amused with Merlin at the end of everything.

"Merlin," Arthur repeats, and laughs, tugging Merlin down to him, hand at the nape of Merlin's neck.  "You look ridiculous," Arthur says against Merlin's lips and the kisses are the same, bitingly familiar and playful.  No one kisses like they're laying siege.  Not anymore.  Arthur does, and Merlin wonders how many of the girls and boys here know that already

Arthur doesn't remember him after he comes down.  Smiles in a slightly stoned way, arm around a willowy redhead's shoulders.

Merlin leaves the first time thinking it's an aberration. The second time he watches Arthur drop, and then comes back an hour later after he's coaxed Charlie away from the tree he's convinced is a portal to like, the netherworld (Merlin checks, because sometimes Fey are _bitches_ like that).

There's a boy sucking Arthur's cock when Merlin comes back—not a _boy_, probably early twenties; their age (Merlin just always _feels_ old). Arthur's hand is on his neck, thumb stroking the base of his skull as he bobs up and down between Arthur's splayed legs.

Arthur catches Merlin's eyes and smirks, just a little. Shifts his weight to let his thighs fall open some more. He says something to the kid, and Merlin narrows his eyes.

It's not—he has no right to this Arthur. None.

He wants to kill the cocksucker and then maybe fuck Arthur's brains out.

And then Arthur drawls, easily, "Merlin, come here." It's full of exasperation, honey-smooth, and Merlin realizes that yes, this is _his_ Arthur, his Arthur who remembers…and so Merlin comes over.

Arthur's hand is insistent in his hair, his mouth like a force of nature. The way he kisses; like it hasn't been centuries, like he's always been entitled to this…Merlin is _drowning_ in it.

"Don't stop," Arthur says, and Merlin starts to point out that _Arthur_ pulled back, but then remembers that there's someone else. That someone else has Arthur's cock hot and heavy on his tongue, in his throat.

Merlin reaches down and curls his hand in the kid's hair, yanks him off of Arthur's cock; he chokes a little, a sound like gray, dusty rocks. "Stop," Merlin says, and lets his eyes go gold, just for a moment; just enough to scare the kid the fuck off and away.

"I was enjoying that," Arthur informs him, almost petulant.

"You'll enjoy this more," Merlin informs him, then reconsiders, "or I will." He pushes Arthur back, so his shoulders are in the muddy ground, hips raised over the log he was sitting on, and Arthur laughs a little.

"Oh, I see how it is."

"How it is is that I'm going to fuck you until you can't see clearly," Merlin informs him. "Taunting me with children—"

"By that token _we're_ children," Arthur points out.

"You're a thousand some odd years old," Merlin scoffs, and rubs the heel of his hand into Arthur's cock, which hasn't flagged at all, still shiny with the kid's spit. He shifts, pumps it lazily, just to watch Arthur's abs tighten, his head fall back and his mouth go slack as he tries to push into Merlin's hand.

So Merlin just…holds him down. Everyone's so fucking high they won't notice it, and if they do, they'll chalk it up to the drugs. It's a little bit freeing, not to worry about the gold that skates along Arthur's shoulders and wrists, pinning him down.

"_Bastard_," Arthur swears, and Merlin smirks, settles between Arthur's thighs, and licks over his hole. Arthur's philosophy of fucking is to treat it like a race: everything headed for climax. Merlin is a little more…well, of a bastard, really.

Arthur is squirming as Merlin slowly licks into him, fucking him open with his tongue, using his hands to spread Arthur's cheeks wider, to get fuller access to him.

"Oh, oh _fuck_, Merlin, come on, _fucking tease_," Arthur gasps, and Merlin can feel his thighs trembling. Merlin laughs a little and bites, warning, at the juncture of leg and torso. Arthur flinches, breath hitching, and Merlin bets he's leaking against his stomach, shameless: on display for anyone who walks by to see.

"Be patient," Merlin admonishes, and crooks a finger inside Arthur, slick because magic is fucking awesome like that, and Merlin doesn't need to carry around vaseline and claim it's for his lips.

He mouths Arthur's balls, sucks one in his mouth and then the other, working another finger inside him, scissoring them but Arthur's not tight—he's been fucked recently, and Merlin bites the inside of his thigh.

Arthur bucks—it's probably not fair, as Arthur doesn't even know Merlin when he's not tripping, and how was he meant to know Merlin would be here? Still, _'mine'_ is all Merlin can think as he unbuttons his fly.

"Merlin, please," Arthur manages. "Merlin—I…please—"

Merlin takes pity on him, then, takes pity on them both, and bends Arthur's legs up, holding him behind the knees and fucking into him sure and steady, one long sure thrust that has Arthur trying arch and making keening sounds in the back of his throat, hands spasming open and closed again helplessly.

"Gorgeous," Merlin murmurs, shifting to get the angle better, braced on his knees and watching Arthur's face, pleasure-slack but his teeth digging into his lower lip like he's going for blood. He is gorgeous; perfectly fucked out, untouched dick leaking against his stomach, balls tight, and Merlin takes pity, and lets one of the legs go with his hand to jack Arthur off.

Arthur comes hard, every muscle in his body clenching and a raw, mangled sound tearing from somewhere low in his throat and Merlin laughs, stupid and breathless, and fucks into him harder, rougher and when he comes he's coming forever.

Arthur gives him a look when he can sit up again, using the ugly plaid over shirt to wipe himself off and tossing it to Merlin before grabbing his jeans and pulling them on. He's going to still leak inside them, Merlin thinks. He wants to spread Arthur out and watch it drip from him.

Merlin gives him a look. "What am I doing with this?"

"Cleaning it," Arthur replies, and then laughs, settling down, rubbing his stomach lazily the way he's always done when he's content with the entire world.

"Fuck you," Merlin snorts, because it's a brand new millennium. He cleans the shirt, anyway, and Arthur's already drowsing.

It's a bad idea, and it's the last day of Woodstock anyway. He should…he should just forget about it. Stay with Charlie and Holly and the gang.

Merlin heads back over to his group, and lays down in his sleeping bag. He even manages to sleep.

"You're avoiding me, _Mer_lin. I think I'm offended." Arthur's voice has dipped back into the right accent, and Merlin jolts up because he's briefly convinced he's forgotten to polish Arthur's armor or make sure his third horse is ready just in case the the other two are unbearable.

He hadn't realized that Arthur's accent shifts.

Then he remembers where they are, and glares at Arthur, who is laughing down at him without actually _laughing_. Because he's unbearable.

"Do you remember when you're not tripping—at all?" Merlin blurts, and Arthur blinks at him, pushes a hand through his hair.

"No," he says. "You're just the strange reticent bastard who everyone thinks can actually do magic and never gets covered in mud."

"I don't like mud."

Arthur looks at him, and then extends a hand and pulls Merlin up. "Take a walk with me, Merlin."

It's probably four in the morning; most people have crashed, but not all. There's the ambient noise of guitars and wood flutes and fucking. It's strangely…comforting. The murmur of noise under the laughter of rain.

"Why are you here?" Merlin asks him, looking over.

"Someone had to drive the bus," Arthur says with a shrug, reaching out before Merlin even realizes he's slipping. Fucking rain. Fucking _mud_.

Fucking Arthur.

"And you were sober."

"Just weed," Arthur shrugs, and then looks at him wryly. "Merlin—"

But Merlin is done: he's been done. He's waited and waited and he's done his brief stint as a good person and frankly, it sucks and the sexual frustration of "good people" is what starts wars, he's pretty sure.

Arthur's laughter under Merlin's lips is familiar, Arthur's hand in the small of his back, grinding them together. When his hand slides around Arthur's neck, he encounters a chain.

He pulls back, laughing when Arthur moves to follow, and pulls it out of Arthur's shirt to look at. Arthur having a necklace isn't unusual. But these aren't a necklace: these are tags.

"No," Merlin says, flatly, his fingers slipping over the metal, pulling too tight.

_WINDSOR  
ARTHUR, V.  
USMC45229310  
AB NEG 438-75-1299  
CATHOLIC_

Arthur watches him quietly.

"It's a _bad war_," Merlin insists, because it—Korea, and then this fucking cesspool and it's _bad_. "Going on a fucking decade it's a bad war—"

"Merlin, really. What else was I going to do?"

"Canada."

"There's no draft yet."

"There will be," Merlin says, and his fingers have tangled in the chain. "I just found—"

"You just found me, and I only remember you when I'm tripping acid. Not exactly an encouraging reunion," Arthur finishes patiently. When—the first time. The first time, Arthur didn't have that expression until he was in his mid-thirties and Gwen was done pretending she wasn't fucking Lancelot; the expression of resignation and tolerance and self-mockery. Arthur's eighteen: he shouldn't have it yet. "And you've been avoiding me."

"Because I didn't want to—" Merlin breaks off, shakes his head. "I didn't want you to ruin your life and look, I'd forgotten you're such a—a—_clotpole_ that you'd do it on your own! I forgot you needed me to _save you_."

"I do not—"

"You do, you really do."

"My father died in Korea. His died in the second war—"

"And you're going to fuck some bint here and knock her up so one day he can say 'My father died in Vietnam' so now I'm going to die in the war of that decade? Or maybe the same one, since this one has no end in sight."

"Merlin—"

But Merlin kisses him. Doesn't want to talk about it, just wants this for as long as he can have it.

"When?" he asks, because he doesn't want to talk about it but he can't fucking help himself.

"Next week."

Merlin closes his eyes, presses his forehead against Arthur's. "This isn't _fair_," he says flatly. "I should—I should _be_ there and—"

Arthur pulls him in. "I'm here now, and I remember."

"But you won't," Merlin says. "And I'll have, what this memory to—"

"So make me remember," Arthur says. "When I come home, make me remember, and I'll run for office and we'll change the world."

Merlin kisses him and tries not to taste the desperation, which he's sure is mostly his own.

He pushes his address into Arthur's mind, the one at home in San Francisco in case Arthur ever remembers; ever wants to get in touch with him. He can't ever get Arthur to actually remember their lives _before_; he's never been able to, but LSD is apparently a miracle drug (no, that's not true. Once, back in the 1400s, Arthur went mad and was taken in with monks, and when Merlin was a little orphan boy he was taken in with the same monks, and sometimes Arthur had looked at him sadly, in his moments of lucidity).

He heads back home and Brett, his roommate, laughs about his stories and then stares at him in horror when he clams up about whether he met anyone and got some free loving.

"Oh my God," she says, leaning her hip against the counter as he washes dishes, "what, is he like, a soldier?"

He looked at her.

"Oh my god, you're in love with a fucking soldier, boy, what are you insane?" she shrieks, but when he stays quiet she sighs and wraps her arms around him and gets their friends to come over and bring the good weed and Holly makes brownies and—

Merlin gets letters, occasionally. They start up two years after Woodstock, but Arthur says something about how he thought the napalm was a dragon's breath, and Merlin realizes the trauma of this war is jarring him. He hopes it keeps him alive longer.

The letters are amusing; Arthur bitching about heat, about footrot, about whatever is on his mind, asking Merlin to send him dirty pictures.

Merlin always sends letters back, mocking letters with nudie mag cutouts for Arthur to give to his men, scraps of info that won't get screened about the protests that Merlin's going to on an almost weekly basis, now.

The letters stop coming in April of '75, and then he gets a package November 2, 1975.

There are three letters.

The first is a love letter in a woman's loopy handwriting, and Merlin doesn't get it, why this woman is talking about things he doesn't remember. It's addressed to him, but he has…no memory of any of it. And the second letter starts that way until the third fold, where it changes, and Merlin finally gets it.

He sits down hard on his couch, and Brett looks at him in alarm from the kitchen. Merlin waves her away, shaking his head, and exhales. Maybe he needs a hit before he reads this. Shit. Shit.

Shit.

_He said to send this to you,_ the unfamiliar handwriting begins. _He said you were the only one he wanted to have it; the only one who deserved it, and well, you know how stubborn he was. Anyway, they won't have told you he's dead ~~and I'm not sure what they're saying publicly about how~~ and I'm not even technically supposed to have it, but they didn't want the body ID'd so I took it. And now you have it. Sorry about the letter—I had to take it off him. Burn this one too, okay? I could get in a lot of shit for this._

It's unsigned.

Arthur's letter is brief, not even a letter, just two lines: _Next time,we're going to save the world, Merlin. Next time we're going to get it right._

Merlin wraps his hand around Arthur's dog tag, and closes his eyes.

Next time, he won't let Arthur think he knows what's best.

Next time he won't let Arthur go into a bad war _alone_, into a war where he's guaranteed to die; to not come back.

"Your soldier?" Brett asks.

"He—"

She sits beside him and wraps her arms around him the way that he's done whenever her boyfriends break up with her; the way she did when he came back from his own dates and cried because his fucking boyfriend is off in the jungle, doing his best to die.

And he managed it, Merlin realizes dully. He managed to die just before they were all coming home.

"I thought he'd come home to me," Merlin says.

"I know, baby," she agrees. "I know."

She pets his hair and goes out to fetch them Chinese food, and Merlin slips Arthur's tag around his neck, cool against his chest, leans back against the couch, and puts an arm over his eyes.

"Shit."


End file.
